I technically learned to read before I could write. I was reading Dr. Seuss books in pre-K while simultaneously putting four horizontal bars in my capital E’s.
But then in Kindergarten, I began to recite my phonics while drawing my letters on paper with dotted lines. I would recite “a, ay, ah, uh” while carefully tracing a circle counterclockwise from 2:00 on the clock, making sure to hit the dotted and bottom line, before drawing a stick-straight line all the way to the bottom, all without lifting my pencil. I had made a lowercase A.
I learned all my letters this way—reciting, drawing, seeing. I wasn't the best, but my handwriting would usually got a grade of “S,” which stood for “satisfactory.”
In third grade, I copied one of my friend’s strategies for handwriting—writing absolutely tiny. This probably improved my handwriting more than anything. When you’re forming letters half the size of college-ruled notebook paper, you have to be as neat as possible. Our poor teacher joked that she had to use a magnifying glass to read our work.
When I returned to human-sized lettering, I had perfect handwriting that would earn the grade of “O” for “outstanding,” the highest you could get. I continued to get the highest grades in handwriting and in just about everything else as well. I had perfect handwriting and a perfect report card.
But the thing about handwriting that makes it interesting is that everyone’s handwriting is different. You can see a little of the writer in their lettering—they rush through their work, so it’s slanted hard; they’re outgoing and positive, so their writing is bubbly; they’re falling asleep, so their writing drifts off the page.
But perfect handwriting is just that—perfect. It’s perfectly aligned, perfectly styled, perfectly formed. It can be nothing else.
And that’s what my handwriting was—perfect, and nothing else.
In addition to perfect writing, my hand hurt. Way back in Kindergarten, I started gripping the pencil too tightly and pushing too hard, and it never stopped. My anxious habit of cracking my knuckles only contributed to the pain, and throughout school, I found it hard to write for more than 20 minutes at a time.
I gravitated to typing in 4th grade simply to keep my hands from hurting, but I fell in love with the way that I could rearrange and edit my work a million times before I printed it. The consistent lettering of Times New Roman never let me down, and I could make sure my papers were absolutely perfect when I turned them in.
Suddenly handwriting became synonymous with flaws in my mind, and typing was the key to perfection.
In high school, I started taking notes on paper without lines when I was introduced to the concept by my biology teacher. I was able to keep my writing neat and straight, and I loved that I could include illustrations for biology or diagrams in math or battle-plots for history.
I also developed the most obnoxious habit: for some classes, I would take messy notes in class and rewrite them neatly every night. I gave myself permission to have less-than-perfect notes for only a few hours before I could diligently correct them.
And all the while, my tense, aching hands still hurt.
I can’t help but see my relationship with handwriting, typing, and even my own hands as an illustration of myself. I’ve always been a seeker of perfection. People think it’s from my parents or my schooling, but it isn’t. It’s from myself. It’s a part of me that seeks what is beautiful, whether that’s handwriting or a perfectly-structured essay. And it’s a part of me that hurts if I use it for too long.
Handwriting has always been an experience of neatness, of forming the right letters and making it look nice. It’s hard for me to break that mold and write quickly. But when I came to college, I started to feel like my writing was too perfect, like it didn’t even have a personality. It was correct, and nothing more. And for the first time, I wanted to be something more than correct.
So for the past two years, I’ve been trying to de-neatify my handwriting. I’m writing faster, slurring my letters, and holding my grip less tightly. And I’ve been pleased with the results.
It’s still pretty neat and it’s still more-or-less straight, but it’s got a little jump to it, a little staccato. I connect some of my letters in a half-cursive maneuver, I write in pen, I make notes to myself (note the ugh ugh ugh at the bottom of the first page). You can see where I rushed and where I took my time.
It’s human. Just like me.
